Russian Security Council Secretary visits Iran

Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov who arrived in Iran yesterday and Hasan Rowhani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, met to discuss issues of regional and international security.

"The conferees focused on issues of regional and international security. They discussed efforts against terrorism, drug production and trafficking," a diplomatic source said on Monday.

The conferees also discussed guidelines for the development of Russian-Iranian relations in different areas.

On Monday, Mr Ivanov is expected to meet in talks with Kamal Kharazi, the host country's Foreign Minister, and Hoddad Adel, Chairman of Mejlis, Iranian parliament.

Russian-Iranian cooperation in the nuclear sphere will also be touched on at Teheran meetings. It gained momentum after the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution, in June, on the report delivered by IAEA General Director Mohamed ElBaradei on the Iranian "nuclear dossier." Teheran qualified the resolution as anti-Iranian and the one adopted under pressure from Washington, its dire foe. Teheran also accused Great Britain, France and Germany of non-compliance with available agreements and announced an intention to resume uranium enrichment that had been reportedly suspended under the agreements. Although the agency criticised Iran in the resolution for the insufficient transparency and openness of its nuclear programmes, particularly for failing to provide full information on the scale of the country's activities in enriching uranium in laser centrifuges, which is most dangerous international analysts believe, the "Iranian dossier" was not handed over to the United Nations Security Council for consideration and no relevant sanctions were imposed on Iran.

The IAEA does not seem to worry much about Russian-Iranian cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear power. Mr ElBaradei said in Moscow recently that the problem did not stand high on the agency's priority list, furthermore so as Iran had signed the Additional Protocol to the Non-proliferation Treaty and agreed to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia. (Russian specialists have been building a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran, since the mid 1990s).

More than 5.8 million people voted for Nicholas Maduro at the presidential election in Venezuela. This is more than a quarter of registered voters. Why did those people vote for the man, who, as Western media write, took Venezuela to the brink of collapse?